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THE  DEFEAT  OF  PARTY  DESPOTISM 


Re-enfranchisement  of  the  Individual  Citizen. 


AN     ARGUMENT     FOR     THE      RESTORATION     OF 

MAJORITY  ELECTIONS,  PRESENTED  TO  THE 

MASSACHUSETTS     REFORM     CLUB, 

BOSTON,   OCTOBER  2,    1886, 


LEONARD    WOOLSEY    BACON. 


Published  by  request  of  the  Club. 


BOSTON : 

Press  of  Rockwell  and   Churchill,   39  Arch   Street. 

1886. 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PARTY  DESPOTISM 


Re-enfranchisement  of  the  Individual  Citizen. 


AN     ARGUMENT     FOR     THE      RESTORATION     OF 

MAJORITY  ELECTIONS,  PRESENTED  TO  THE 

MASSACHUSETTS     REFORM     CLUB, 

BOSTON,   OCTOBER  2,    1886, 


BY 


LEONARD    WOOLSEY    BACON. 


Published  by  request  of  the  Club. 


BOSTON : 

Press  of  Rockwell  and  Churchill,  39  Arch   Street. 

1886. 


\f> 


<& 


*  > 


'  4' 


G-' 


& 


Fellow-  Citizens  of  the  Reform  Club :  — 

In  laying  before  you  a  plan  for  the  defeatfof  party  despotism 
I  have  the  great  advantage  of  being  assured  of  your  interest  in 
the  object  proposed,  and  thus  of  being  relieved  of  the  burden  of 
a  large  part  of  my  argument.  /  That  party  despotism  exists,  and 
is  not  much  more  tolerable  for  being  nominally  vested  in  two 
parties  instead  of  one ;  and  that  it  exists  as  a  continual  mischief 
and  formidable  peril  to  the  commonwealth,^-  these  are  propo- 
sitions which,  as  a  society  for  political  reform,  you  will  be  ready 
to  admit  without  protracted  discussion.  It  is  substantially  true, 
and  is  growing  every  year  to  be  more  absolutely  and  exclusively 
true,  that  the  American  citizen  is  shut  out  from  any  effective 
share  in  political  affairs,  from  municipal  to  national,  except  by 
virtue  of  his  membership  in,  or  his  subserviency  to,  one  of  two 
great  extra-constitutional  and  extra-legal  organizations.  Inde- 
pendently of  his  relation  to  one  of  these  great  combinations,  the 
citizen  is  not  only  practically  excluded  from  official  functions,  but 
even  his  freedom  as  a  voter  is  narrowed  down  so  near  to  the 
vanishing  point  that  the  exercise  of  the  voter's  franchise  is  getting 
to  be  more  and  more  neglected,  as  an  act  merely  formal  and 
futile.  And,  to  the  great  detriment  of  the  republic  and  the  degra- 
dation of  its  political  life,  this  neglect  of  political  duties  tends  to 
become  more  and  more  general  among  those  classes  of  citizens 
who,  by  reason  of  superior  intelligence  and  independence  and 
conscientiousness  of  character,  are  the  least  likely  to  move  in 
subserviency  to  the  requirements  of  a  party  organization. 

There  are  simple  souls,  no  doubt,  who  will  consider  all  objec- 
tions to  the  supreme  domination  of  parties  to  be  completely  met 
by  asking,  What,  after  all,  are  parties,  but  the  people  themselves 
dividing  naturally,  according  to  the  opinions  or  predilections  of 
each  individual,  on  important  questions  as  they  emerge?  What, 
then,  is  the  success  and  domination  of  the  greater  party  but  the  rule 

312652 


of  the  majority  of  the  people  ?  These  are  apt  to  be  old-fashioned 
people,  whose  guileless  notions  have  come  down  to  them  from 
earlier  ages  of  the  republic,  and  who  do  not  know  that  a  pai;ty  in 
modern  America  is  an  entity  as  real  as  an  army ;  that  it  is  a  cor- 
poration in  every  respect  except  this,  that  it  is  neither  recognized 
by  law  nor  responsible  to  law  ;  that  the  Republican  party  and  the 
Democratic  party,  bating  the  matter  of  a  charter  and  the  ques- 
tionable privilege  of  suing  and  being  sued,  are  as  individual,  as 
actual,  as  personal,  as  the  New  York  &  New  England  Railroad 
Company.  £lt  is  hardly  necessary  to  spend  time  in  refuting  the 
obsolescent  notion  that  the  party  comes  into  existence  with  political 
exigencies,  and  then  ceases  until  it  is  reanimated  with  the  return- 
ing need.  I  am  speaking  to  those  who  are  better  informed,  — 
who  are  aware  that  the  organization  which  dazzles  the  world  at 
election  time  with  its  torches  and  fireworks  and  its  more  than 
pyrotechnic  eloquence,  does  not  cease  when  the  election  is  over ; 
that  not  more  diligently  are  the  campaign  torches  and  other 
properties  laid  away,  with  such  of  the  jokes,  anecdotes,  and 
metaphors  as  will  keep,  to  be  furbished  up  and  brought  out  again 
at  the  beginning  of  the  next  campaign,  than  the  organization 
itself  is  put  into  complete  repair  and  kept  in  sufficient  activity  to 
prevent  it  from  rusting.  The  party  is  not  an  annual,  dying  at 
the  root  and  springing  again  from  seed.  It  makes  a  woody  stalk, 
—  yea,  it  becometh  a  tree  ;  and  very  queer  are  some  of  the  birds, 
of  strange  and  not  beautiful  feather  and  of  cacophonous  note, 
and  not  in  the  least  delicate  in  their  taste  for  carrion,  which  come 
and  make  their  nests  in  the  branches  thereof.  It  is  an 
organization  that  can  be  maintained  only  by  a  martial  severity 
of  discipline  towards  mutineers  and  deserters,  at  the  first 
symptoms  of  disaffection  or  independent  judgment,  shooting 
them  politically  dead  on  the  spot;  but  paying  for  professional 
services  with  such  rewards  as  it  has  to  dispose  of.  For  profes- 
sional services  it  must  have.  Notwithstanding  all  the  volunteer 
and  amateur  service  that  is  rendered  during  the  excitement  of  an 
election  "  campaign,"  so  vast  and  complicated  a  machine  as  a 
political  party  needs  a  great  amount  of  skilled  and  professional 
labor,  and  must  be  tended,  even  when  it  is  idle,  by  experts  who 
give  their  whole  time  to  it,  and  who  are  possessed  with  the   mis- 


taken  idea  that  "  they  must  live."  The  parts  of  the  machine  are 
geared  together  with  immense  ability, — a  system  of  wheels  with- 
in wheels.  The  outer  periphery  is  made  up  of  the  large  multi- 
tude of  voters,  who,  by  force  of  conviction,  or  of  interest,  or  of 
tradition,  or  of  mere  habit  and  inertia,  are  accustomed  to  call 
themselves  by  the  party  name,  and  to  vote  its  ticket  with  more  or 
less  regularity.  Within  this  is  geared  the  circle  of  amateur  par- 
tisans, who  so  far  identify  themselves  with  the  party's  affairs  as  to 
frequent  the  nominating  caucus.  A  still  smaller  and  interior 
circle  is  the  ring  of  professional  politicians,  who  give  their  whole 
time  to  politics,  and,  in  one  way  or  another,  make  their  living  out 
of  it.  And,  in  the  inmost  centre  of  all  lies  coiled  the  boss,  who 
makes  the  whole  go  round.  The  small  residuum  of  liberty  that 
is  left  to  the  individual  citizen  at  the  ballot-box  is  to  decide  be- 
tween two  such  organizations  and  their  candidates.  And  even 
this  apparent  liberty  is  sometimes  rendered  nugatory  by  the 
operation  of  that  well-known  principle  that  "where  combination 
is  possible,  competition  is  out  of  the  question."  The  fact  is  not 
infrequent,  and  tends  to  become  more  and  more  common,  that  the 
two  ostensibly  hostile  parties  are  really  managed  in  collusion. 
These  fierce  contests,  waged  with  such  a  show  of  intense  ani- 
mosity, are  managed  on  both  sides,  if  not  by  the  same  men,  at 
least  by  men  who  have  a  perfectly  good  understanding  with  one 
another.  It  is  responsibly  asserted  by  a  respectable  writer,1  as  a 
thing  "  perfectly  well  understood,  that  in  the  State  of  New  York 
the  same  set  of  men  manage  both  the  parties." 

Briefly  stated,  the  fact  is  this :  Our  democratic  government, 
while  still  maintained  as  to  all  its  legal  forms  and  titles,  as  the 
forms  of  the  Roman  Republic  were  maintained  under  the  Caesars, 
has  undergone  a  revolution,  and  we  are  governed  by  an  oligarchy 
of  professional  politicians,  or  at  best  by  two  oligarchies  holding 
power  alternately. 

Since,  then,  in  the  development  of  our  institutions  we  have 
come  to  be  under  the  government  of  a  self-constituted,  but 
thoroughly  and  powerfully  organized  guild  of  professional  poli- 
ticians, it  would  be  no  small  satisfaction  and  relief  if  we  could 
have  assurance  of  the  high  and  honorable   character  of  the  pro- 

1  Mr.  Albert  Stickney,  in  Scribncr's  Magazine,  July,  18S1,  p.  357. 


6 

fession.  What  is  the  character  of  the  American  citizens  who 
devote  their  time  to  politics  and  make  their  living  out  of  it? 
There  is  no  exaggeration  whatever  in  saying  that  the  profession 
of  politics,  as  a  means  of  livelihood,  is,  in  the  estimation  of  the 
public  generally,  a  disreputable  profession ;  and  that  is  practi- 
cally equivalent,  in  the  long  run,  to  saying  that  it  deserves  to  be 
held  in  contempt.  Put  any  set  of  men  for  a  course  of  years 
under  the  ban  of  public  odium,  and,  however  honest  they  maybe 
to  begin  with,  unless  they  are  lifted  up  by  a  spirit  of  martyr- 
dom, they  will  by  and  by  begin  to  deserve  it.  Gradually  honest 
men  will  quit  them,  and  rogues  will  join  them.  Let  any  class  of 
people  be  habitually  suspected  as  thieves,  and  before  long  they 
will  begin  to  steal.  Now  there  is  no  mistaking  the  popular  sen- 
timent as  to  the  character  of  the  professional  politician.  It  is  a 
feeling  of  detestation.  No  point  made  by  a  public  speaker  is 
more  sure  to  "bring  the  house  down"  than  a  point  well  made 
against  this  whole  class  —  as  a  class.  Probably,  since  slave- 
dealers  ceased  to  be  a  class  among  us,  no  name  of  any  craft  is  so 
generally  odious  to  the  people  as  that  of  professional  politicians. 
Consequently,  once  started  in  that  direction,  the  whole  business 
tends  swiftly  downward  to  lower  and  lower  levels. 

If  it  is  a  wonder  to  any  that  the  noblest  functions  of  citizenship 
should  tend  to  become  so  debased,  some  of  the  reasons  of  it  are 
not  far  to  seek.  We  have  seen  that,  by  that  law  of  differentiation 
so  justly  stated  by  the  evolutionists,  as  society  becomes  more 
complex  and  highly  organized,  the  business  of  managing  politics 
inevitably  falls  into  the  hands  of  trained  experts,  giving  their 
whole  time  to  the  business,  and  taking  their  pay  out  of  it.  Now 
it  is  not  only  that  many  of  the  operations  of  this  profession, 
especially  in  its  lower  ranks,  are  not  particularly  ennobling,  but 
that  its  payments  are  made  in  the  form  of  chances  for  office  or 
for  perquisites.  The  consequence  of  this  method  is  that  the 
gambling  element  in  society  is  attracted  to  politics  as  a  business. 
I  know  it  is  alleged  that  it  is  not  exclusively  so ;  that  there  are 
resources  of  no  such  precarious  character  on  which  those  who 
serve  their  country  in  the  lower  grades  of  the  profession  may  rely 
with  some  measure  of  certainty  ;  that  there  are  great  and  wealthy 
and   not  ungenerous  corporations,  too    patriotic,  too   sensible  of 


the  importance  of  having  the  State  and  the  country  properly 
governed,  and  too  grateful  for  timely  services  to  their  own  and 
the  public  good,  to  allow  even  the  humbler  laborers  who  help  to 
"  fix  things  "  in  the  caucus  or  the  canvass  to  suffer  for  lack  of  daily 
food,  or  yet  of  necessary  drink.  But  not  even  thus  is  the  profes- 
sion lifted  up  to  such  dignity  that  a  wise  man  is  pleased  when  he 
learns  that  his  son  has  chosen  it  for  a  vocation. 

It  is  only  a  converse  of  this  fact  that  the  meaner  elements  of 
society  are  attracted  into  politics  as  a  profession,  to  say  that  good 
and  honorable  men  are  repelled  from  it ;  and  so  the  matter  goes 
from  bad  to  worse.  I  might  quote,  in  confirmation  of  this  state- 
ment, some  discouraging  words  from  President  Woolsey,  and 
some  less  despairing  expressions  from  my  beloved  and  brilliant 
friend,  the  late  Prof.  Diman  ; 1  but  it  is  better  to  cite  the  testimony 
of  some  of  the  warmest  friends  of  America  on  the  other  side  of 
the  sea  :  as  when  Thomas  Hughes  declared  it  as  a  general  fact, 
notwithstanding  the  multitude  of  exceptions,  that  "in  America 
educated  men  take  no  interest  in  politics  ;  "  or  when  John  Stuart 
Mill  says  that  in  America  "  the  instructed  minority  "  stand  aloof 
from  political  affairs ;  and  adds  the  strong  and  sweeping  state- 
ment:  "Political  life  is,  indeed,  in  America  a  most  valuable 
school,  but  it  is  a  school  from  which  the  ablest  teachers  are  ex- 
cluded ;  the  first  minds  in  the  country  being  as  effectually  shut 
out  from  the  national  representation,  and  from  public  functions 
generally,  as  if  they  were  under  some  formal  disqualifications."  *  — ^ 
Doubtless  we  can  find  some  exceptions  to  this  statement ;  but  they 
are  exceptions  still,  and  they  are  growing  rarer  as  the  country  is 
growing  older.  We  might  even  point  to  one  branch  of  the  public 
service,  the  consular  and  diplomatic,  and  prove  by  the  names  of 
Irving  and  Bancroft  and  Wheaton  and  Motley  and  Hawthorne, 
that  we  have  a  place  to  which  such  men  are  not  ineligible,  and 
that  this  place  is  almost  anywhere  not  within  3,000  miles  of  a 
ballot-box  or  a  primary  meeting.  We  might  even  point  with 
exultation  to  the  recent  demonstration  that  an  American  is  not 
necessarily  excluded  from  rendering  his  country  effective  service, 
—  that  is,  in  foreign  parts,  — by  the  mere  fact  of  his  being  the 
foremost  scholar  among    poets,  and    the  foremost  poet    among 

iln  their  Phi  Beta  Kappa  orations  at  Harvard,  in  1875  and  1S76. 
sOn  Representative  Government,  p.  157. 


8 


scholars,  since  Coleridge,  not  to  say  since  Milton.  But,  after  all, 
the  general  fact  remains,  and  Mr.  Mill  and  Mr.  Hughes  were 
right. 

But  the  mischief  is  far  deeper  and  more  dangerous  than  the 
diagnosis  even  of  these  experienced  and  thoughtful  observers  had 
perceived.  It  is  not  only  the  educated  classes  that  are  withdrawn 
from  politics,  but,  to  a  portentous  extent,  the  honest,  intelligent, 
industrious  population  of  all  grades,  finding  the  effective  control 
of  political  affairs  to  be  held  in  the  tight  grasp  of  men  in  whom 
they  have  no  confidence,  are  lapsing  into  a  despairing  indifference 
and  inactivity,  from  which  they  are  roused  only  by  the  application 
of  some  violent  stimulus,  or  by  the  excitements  of  some  sharply 
contested  canvass.  All  but  the  devotees  and  obsequious  servants 
of  one  of  the  two  party  machines  find  themselves  left  out  from 
public  functions,  and,  apparently,  of  no  account  in  the  affairs  of 
the  parties.  There  remains  to  them  the  option  of  voting  for  one\ 
or  another  of  two  candidates  whose  names  are  dictated  to  the  pub- 
lic by  the  oligarchy  of  professional  politicians.  Is  it  strange  that 
the  option  between  the  two  should  begin  to  seem  of  no  such  im- 
portance as  to  justify  the  trouble  of  going  to  the  polls  ?  Is  it 
strange  that  thoughtful  and  intelligent  citizens  outside  of  party 
lines,  disgusted  with  the  tyranny  which  shuts  them  up,  in  the  act 
of  voting,  to  a  choice  between  the  representatives  and  instruments 
of  two  unworthy  combinations,  and  tired  of  being  bullied  into 
voting  for  men  whom  they  do  not  approve  by  the  threat,  "  You 
had  better  vote  for  our  man,  or  you  will  have  to  put  up  with  a 
worse  one,"  should  fall  into  the  mistake  —  wrong  and  fatal  as  it 
is  —  of  neglecting  to  vote  at  all,  as  being  an  act  ordinarily  without 
significance  or  use  ?  Says  one  thoughtful  and  serious  writer : 
"  Year  after  year  we  go  through  the  empty  form  of  placing  in  a 
box  a  list  of  names  of  men  we  do  not  know,  put  into  our  hands 
by  men  whom  we  do  not  respect."  '  A  former  president  of  Har- 
vard College  declared  :  "  I  always  feel,  when  I  put  my  hand  to 
the  ballot-box,  that  I  am  being  used  by  somebody,  I  know  not 
whom,  for  some  purpose,  I  know  not  what."2 

1  Mr.  Albert  Stickney,  in  Scribner's  Magazine,  1S81,  page  577. 

2  Quoted  by  Mr.  Josiah  P.  Quincy,  in  an  instructive  essay  on  "  The  Protection  of  Majori- 
ties," p.  65.  Boston,  1876.  The  title  of  the  Essay  is  worthy  of  the  attention  of  those  who  are 
studying  the  subject  of  "  minority  representation  ;  "  and  suggests  the  question  whether  this 
ubject,  interesting  as  it  is,  may  not  well  be  postponed  until  some  provision  is  made  for  the 
epresentation  of  the  majority. 


9 


The  practical  question  which  demands  our  study,  in  view  of 
these  abuses,  may  be  stated  in  either  of  two  forms,  which  are  the 
same  in  substance  and  effect :  Either,  How  can  the  individual 
citizen  be  restored  to  his  political  rights  and  powers ;  or,  How 
can  the  intolerable  oligarchy  of  professional  politicians  which  now 
avails  to  defeat  the  individual  citizen  of  any  power  but  such  as 
he  may  exercise  in  subordination  to  itself,  be  thrown  down  and 
broken  up  ?  Either  of  these  two  involves  the  other  ;  reenfranchise 
the-individual  citizens,  and  wheney^r_it_is  necessary^hey_jwjU 
smash  the  machine  ;  smash  the  machine,  and  honest  citizens  will 
come  to  their  rights  again. 

i.  The  common  answer  that  is  made  to  the,  respectable  citi- 
zen who  complains  of  the  tyranny  of  the  party  system,  by  means 
of  which  the  control  of  pubTIc~arlaifs"Has  been  usurped  into  un- 
worthy hands  in  the  caucus  and  behind  the  caucus,  is  made  in 
the  form  of  an  apparently  overwhelming  retort:  "  If  you  want 
a  different  class  of  people  to  go  to  the  primary  meetings,  why 
don't  you  go  to  them  yourself  and  take  your  friends,  instead  of 
staying  at  home  and  writing  grumbling  letters  to  the  newspapers? 
Who  is  to  blame  for  the  fact  that  there  is  nobody  at  the  primary 
meeting  but  the  ring  and  the  ringleader  and  their  retainers? 
Who  is  to  blame  that  the  respectable  and  intelligent  and  educated 
citizens  are  not  there,  except  the  educated  and  intelligent  and 
respectable  citizens  who  stay  away?  We  would  like  nothing 
better  than  to  have  you  come.  Why  don't  you  come  ? "  And 
the  question  sounds  so  plausible  and  is  pressed  by  the  party 
managers  and  their  newspapers  with  a  smile  so  "  childlike  and 
bland  "  as  sometimes  to  deceive  the  very  elect ;  who,  being  drawn 
thus  to  the  primary  meeting,  find,  to  their  innocent  amazement, 
that  the  primary  meeting  is  not  primary  at  all ;  that  there  are 
other  meetings  prior  to  the  primary  —  meetings  to  which  they 
are  by  no  means  invited  —  by  which  it  is  predetermined  what  the 
primary  meeting  is  to  do  ;  and  that  somehow  or  other  it  invari- 
ably happens  that  there  are  enough  people  at  the  primary  meet- 
ing of  the  right  way  of  thinking  to  make  sure  that  the  program 
determined  on  by  the  professional  gentlemen  at  the  meeting 
which  is  prior  to  the  primary  shall  not  be  seriously  departed 
from.     The  respectable  and  conscientious  citizen  returns  home 


10 


in  a  pensive  mood  from  his  unwonted  evening  at  a  tavern  or 
club-room,  and  employs  the  remainder  of  the  sleepless  night  in 
an  endeavor  to  foot  up  the  net  results  of  his  truly  missionary 
undertaking  to  elevate  the  character  of  the  primary  meeting. 

He  finds,  first,  that  he  has  advertised  himself  as  owing  alle- 
giance to  the  party ;  and,  secondly,  that  his  vote  and  personal 
influence  are  claimed  as  pledged  by  his  presence  at  the  caucus  to 
the  support  of  some  scoundrel  nomination  which  he  went  there 
purposely  to  oppose  ;  and  it  is  gradually  borne  in  upon  his  medi- 
tations in  the  night-watches  that  if  he  shall  balk,  or  threaten  to 
bolt,  he  will  at  once  be  charged  with  being  a  traitor  who  came 
into  the  caucus  intent  on  playing  the  deep  little  game  of  "  Heads 
I  win,  tails  you  lose,"  and  that  he  may  consider  himself  to  be  let 
oft' very  easily  indeed,  in  his  reputation  and  business,  if  he  suffers 
nothing  worse  than  to  be  denounced  among  all  stanch  and  loyal 
members  of  the  party  by  some  disagreeable  nickname  beginning 
with  a  letter  M.  Can  we  seriously  blame  the  respectable  citizen 
if  he  falls  into  the  habit  of  absenting  himself  thereafter  from  such 
meetings,  and  if,  to  the  appeal  of  the  professional  gentleman 
who  manages  his  ward,  and  who  says  to  him,  "You  are  respon- 
sible for  the  corruption  of  our  politics  ;  my  dear  sir,  why  don't 
you  attend  our  primaries?"  he  makes  reply  only  with  the  silent 
eloquence  of  an  injured  and  reproachful  look  ? 

2.  Another  answer  which  is  very  obvious  and  plausible  is 
this  :  "  If  bad  men  combine,  then  let  good  men  unite  in  a  counter- 
combination.  Unite  in  a  new  party,  or  at  least  in  a  new  organi- 
zation of  some  sort,  which  shall  aim  to  take  the  domination  out 
of  unworthy,  corrupt,  or  selfish  hands  and  control  it  for  good  and 
honorable  ends."  And  that  this  answer  is  not  wholly  futile  and 
unpractical  there  is  more  than  one  illustration  in  American  his- 
tory—  the  best  of  them,  perhaps,  the  story  of  the  Philadelphia 
"  committee  of  one  hundred."  But  I  have  no  doubt  that  those 
who  have  had  even  a  successful  experience  with  this  method  will 
tell  us  that  it  is  (i)  of  most  doubtful  issue,  like  the  opposing  of  a 
veteran  regular  army  with  an  insurrection  of  raw  volunteers  ;  (2) 
that  it  is  enormously  costly,  demanding,  to  a  certain  extent,  the 
paid  professional  work  without  which  no  political  organization 
will  run  except  for  a  very  little  while  ;  consequently  (3)  it  is  only 


11 


in  the  greatest  extremity,  when  abuses  become  absolutely  intoler- 
able, that  men  can  be  induced  to  resort  to  it ;  and  (4)  as  soon  as 
it  begins  to  be  successful  it  tends  to  become  corrupt,  like  the 
parties  which  it  has  superseded.  Evidently  this  is  no  sufficient 
solution  of  our  problem. 

3.  Another  answer,  and  the  one  on  which  society  seems  to  be 
settling  down  as  the  only  practical  one,  is  to  take  the  nominating 
caucuses  of  the  two  parties  under  surveillance  of  the  statute  law ; 
providing  whatever  safeguards  it  is  possible  for  legislation  to 
devise,  against  fraud  and  corruption  in  the  management  of  a 
matter  which  hitherto  has  been  wholly  extra-constitutional 
and  extra-legal.  This  experiment  is  now  on  trial  in  several  of 
the  States,  among  them  in  Massachusetts. 

Let  it  be  fairly  tried  and  judged  by  its  fruits.  But  there  are 
serious  objections  to  it  at  the  outset.  Instead  of  mitigating  the 
power  of  the  two  dominant  parties,  it  aggravates  it  to  a  perilous 
degree,  enabling  these  to  intrench  themselves  in  the  statute-book ; 
giving  them,  for  the  first  time,  recognition  before  the  law,  with- 
out corresponding  responsibility  to  the  law ;  seeming  to  give  the 
citizens,  so  far  as  they  are  partisans,  power  over  the  machine,  but 
really  confirming  the  machine  in  its  power  over  the  citizens  ;  and, 
finally,  completing  the  practical  disfranchisement  of  the  individual 
voter,  by  shutting  him  up,  more  hopelessly  than  ever,  to  a  mere 
option  between  the  two  machines.  It  is  seriously  to  be  feared  that, 
even  if  it  brings  us  some  measure  of  relief  from  the  open  and 
impudent  frauds  common  heretofore  in  the  nomination  of  candi- 
dates (and  whether  it  succeeds  in  so  much  as  this  does  not  seem 
to  be  demonstrated  yet  by  the  experiment),  the  good  that  it  may 
do  will  be  offset  by  the  dangerous  revolution  of  setting  up  the 
party  organizations  as  a  part  of  the  fixed  legal  machinery  of 
government.  Perhaps  no  amendment  to  the  constitution  of  state 
or  nation  has  ever  been  attended  with  graver  consequences  than 
are  involved  in  this  little  measure  of  adopting  the  party  machines, 
even  thus  indirectly,  as  part  of  the  mechanism  of  the  government. 

I  need  not  pause  to  speak  of  the  various  expedients  of  cumu- 
lated or  restricted  voting,  minority  representation,  and  so  forth, 
which  have  occupied   the   attention   of  publicists   so   largely,  in 


I 


12 


various  countries,  for  several  years.  They  have  too  slight  and 
remote  a  bearing  on  the  main  point  of  this  argument.1 

I  hasten  to  speak  of  the  one  hopeful  remedy  for  that  intolerable 
despotism  of  the  party  machines  by  which  the  political  liberty  of 
the  citizen  has  been  practically  nullified,  and  the  interest  of  the 
States  and  of  the  nation  imperilled.  This  remedy  I  find  to  con- 
sist, not  in  the  introduction  of  any  novel  device  of  polity,  how- 
ever ingenious  or  however  approved  by  great  names  at  home  or 
abroad,  but  in  the  return  to  a  practice  and  principle  known  to  the 
best  and  purest  ages  of  American  liberty,  — a  practice  and  prin- 
ciple characteristically  and  historically  American,  though  now, 
within  two  generations,  become  obsolete  in  nearly  all  the  States, 
as  well  as  in  national  politics.  I  mean  the  practice  and  principle 
of  ^lajority  jj,ff.€TlpNS,  instead  of  the  delusive,  un-American, 
JBritish  tradition  of  plurality  elections.  By  what  acts  of  political 
intngue^by  what  conspiracy  of  two  great  parties  to  rid  them- 
selves of  all  danger  of  interference  from  a  third  party,  by  what 
indolence  and  judicial  blindness  of  the  people,  it  has  been  brought 
to  pass  that  this  invaluable  protection  of  the  rights  of  the  citizen 
has  almost  everywhere  been  abandoned  and  lost,  it  might  be  long 
to  tell,  though  it  surely  would  not  be  uninstructive.2 

It  is  the  majority  principle  in  popular  elections  which  would 
compel  the  parties  and  their  leaders  to  count  the  scattering  vote, 
and  not  only  count,  but  weigh  it,  even  when  being  laid  in  the 
scale  it  suffices  to  turn  the  balance.  Plurality  government  means 
minority  gnvprnmat^lwayg  and  everywhere.  It  is  the  majority 
principle  restored  which  can  reenfranchise  the  individual,  which 
can  wrench  from  the  double-handed  tyranny  of  these  two  insolent 
hierarchies  of  intrigue  the  sceptre  of  their  allied  despotism, —  these 
two  Frankensteins  of  our  own  making,  which  hold  their  power 

1  In  his  arguments  in  favor  of  "  Proportional  Representation,"  Mr.  Buckalew,  of  Penn- 
sylvania, is  careful  to  conciliate  the  party  interests  by  showing  that  his  plan  will  not 
disturb  the  supremacy  of  the  caucus.  It  is  only  a  plan  to  enable  parties  to  "  represent 
themselves."     See  his  "  Proportional  Representation,"  pp.  73,  74,  14S. 

The  fatal  defect  of  all  these  schemes,  with  reference  to  the  difficulties  which  we  are  study- 
ing, is  that  they  apply  only  to  plural  elections,  —  to  the  choice  of  representative  assemblies. 
They  have  no  application  to  the  choice  of  administrative  officers.  But  good  administra- 
tion is  four-fifths  of  {food  government. 

2  For  a  contribution  towards  this  unwritten  chapter  of  political  history,  see  Appendix  I., 
The  Rise  and  Fall  of  Majority  Government  in  Massachusetts. 


13 

over  us,  each  of  them  by  threatening  us  with  the  other  one,  con- 
fronting the  helpless  citizen  with  a  choice  of  evils  and  bullying 
him  into  voting  for  an  unworthy  candidate,  under  penalty  of  being 
put  under  subjection  to  a  worse  one.  It  is  the  principle  of  ma- 
jority elections  that  is  to  empower  the  thoughtful,  conscientious, 
and  unpartisan  voter,  when  the  two  parties  come  impudently 
urging  him  with  their  inexorable  alternative,  "Take  our  man  or 
the  other;  there  is  no  further  choice  for  you !  "  —  to  defy  both 
parties  by  the  might  of  the  scattering  vote  and  say  to  them,  V 
"  We  will  take  neither  horn  of  your  villanous  dilemma  ;  we  will 
defeat  both  your  candidates.  Now  go  back  to  your  caucus-rooms, 
and  give  us  nominations  fit  to  be  voted  for ! " 

For  there  will  be  caucuses  and  nominations  still.  The  return 
of  the  republic  to  its  original  holding  ground  in  majority  govern- 
ment, from  which  now  these  many  years  it  has  dragged  its  an- 
chors, will  not  supersede  the  reasonable  and  salutary  functions  of 
parties  and  party  councils.  It  will  only  take  from  these  their  ab- 
solute and  domineering  power.  But  will  not  the  caucuses  and 
conventions  still  have  power  enough,  in  the  name  of  reason,  when 
the  two  parties  no  longer  hold  undisputed  between  them  the 
complete  control  of  all  national,  state,  and  municipal  affairs,  sub- 
ject to  no  limitation  but  those  imposed  by  their  mutual  rivalries 
or  mutual  collusions  ?  And  is  the  caucus  likely  to  use  its  power, 
still  formidable,  less  wisely  and  conscientiously  for  knowing  that 
the  nominations  and  projects  of  both  parties  —  not  of  one  or  the 
other  only  —  are  subject  to  be  reviewed  and  negatived  by  free 
citizens  at  the  polls? —  that,  unless,  between  them,  nominations 
are  made  which  command  the  general  respect  of  the  citizens,  the 
election  day  itself  will  be  converted,  under  the  operation  of  a 
well-devised  majority  election  law,  into  a  great  nominating  con- 
vention of  the  whole  body  of  citizens,  acting  under  the  strongest 
sanction  and  protection  of  law,  for  indicating  the  candidates  who 
are  to  be  voted  for  at  a  second  balloting  ?  The  individual  citizen, 
the  scattering  vote,  will  have  come  to  its  rights  again.  And,  as  a 
general  rule,  it  is  the  intelligent  and  conscientious  vote  that  scat- 
ters ;  the  ignorant  and  thoughtless  vote  is  cast  in  blocks. 

How  would  such  an  election  law  operate  ?  It  would  begin  oper- 
ating long  before  election  day,  in  the  very  earliest  whisperings  over 


14 


the  question  of  the  party  nominations ;  and  when  the  convention 
met  —  no  matter  how  unscrupulous  a  convention,  of  no  matter 
how  dominant  a  party  —  it  would  be  overshadowed  by  the  awful 
consciousness  that  its  nomination  was  subject  to  the  veto  power 
of  the  people.  If,  notwithstanding,  the  managers  of  the  dom- 
inant party  should  venture  to  nominate  an  unfit  candidate,  the 
voters  of  the  party  would  vote  him  down  on  election  day  without 
the  slightest  fear  of  thereby  giving  the  election  to  the  opposite 
party.  There  would  be  no  election  on  that  ballot.  But  there 
would  be  a  nomination.  For  the  defect  under  which  the  old 
Massachusetts  law  failed  would  be  remedied  by  a  provision  restrict- 
ing the  voters  at  the  second  ballot  to  three  candidates  receiving 
the  highest  number  of  votes  at  the  first  ballot;  and  at  the  third 
ballot,  if  a  third  should  be  required,  reducing  the  number 
of  candidates  to  two.  For  lack  of  such  a  provision  under  the 
old  law,  the  attempt  to  elect  so  often  resulted  in  an  interminable 
dead-lock,  that  the  people,  out  of  mere  impatience,  abolished  the 
law  instead  of  amending  it,  and  so  permitted  the  two  great 
parties  for  a  few  years  to  crush  the  third  party,  until  at  last  the 
third  party  grew  big  enough  to  crush  them  both.  Under  a  well- 
devised  majority  election  law,  the  dead-lock  could  never  outlast 
three  ballots  ;  and  it  is  simply  reasonable  to  expect  that  the  salu- 
tary influence  of  the  law  upon  nominating  conventions  would 
result  in  such  nominations  as  might,  in  ordinary  circumstances, 
win  a  majority  at  the  first  trial.1 

In  the  meantime,  while  waiting  for  his  reenfranchisement,  let  not 
the  unpartisan  citizen,  however  debarred  from  political  functions, 
make  the  mistake  of  thinking  himself  wholly  excluded  from  politi- 
cal power.  On  the  contrary,  no  small  measure  of  influence  still 
remains  with  him,  if  he  did  but  know  it.  If  he  is  impotent  in 
public  affairs,  it  is  simply  because  he  thinks  himself  so.  Like 
Christian  in  the  "stinking  dungeon"  of  Doubting  Castle,  he 
may  be  quite  unconscious  that  the  key  of  the  situation  is  in  his 
own  pocket.  He  supposes,  as  the  public  in  general  suppose, 
that  the  persons  who  control  the  policy  of  a  political  party  are 
its  stanch  and  constant  adherents ;  whereas  this  is  the  one  class 

1  The  objections  that  have  been  brought  against  the  proposals  of  this  address  are  con- 
sidered in  Appendix  II. 


15 


of  people  who  have  no  influence  with  the  party  at  all.  They 
can  go  to  primaries ;  they  may  even  send  delegates  to  conven- 
tions, provided  they  don't  send  too  many  ;  but  behind  the  caucus, 
behind  the  convention,  is  the  ring,  and  behind  the  ring  sits  en- 
throned in  awful  majesty  the  boss.  But  behind  the  throne  is 
another  power,  the  measure  of  which  is  only  beginning  to  be 
understood.  Whether  they  know  it  or  not,  whether  they  like  it 
or  not,  the  policy  of  boss  and  ring,  and  all  their  hierarchy  ot 
professional  and  amateur  politicians,  is  determined  in  the  long 
run  with  the  inexorableness  of  a  Calvinistic  predestination,  by 
two  classes  of  people  whom  they  all  detest :  first,  the  voters 
whom  they  hope  to  gain ;  second,  the  voters  whom  they  are 
afraid  they  will  lose.  The  voters  whom  they  are  sure  about, 
either  way,  have  no  influence  with  the  party.  The  man  who 
does  not  venture  to  call  his  soul  his  own  is  not  counted  as  having 
any  soul.  The  man  who  grumbles  and  scolds  about  the  nomina- 
tions and  threatens  to  bolt,  but  always  turns  up  on  election  day 
with  the  regular  ticket  in  his  hand,  is  of  even  less  account. 
The  man  who  has  once  actually  bolted,  and  is  likely  to  do  it 
again,  may  be  disliked,  may  be  abused,  may  be  vilipended  under 
cacophonous  nicknames ;  but  he  is  sure  to  be  very  respectfully 
considered  in  the  secret  councils  of  one  party,  and  probably  01 
both.  The  policy  of  a  party,  thus,  instead  of  being  determined 
by  the  character  of  its  leaders,  or  the  character  of  its  rank  and 
file,  is  determined  by  the  character  sometimes  of  its  guerillas, 
sometimes  of  its  bummers.  If  there  is  a  party  of  great  moral 
ideas,  quite  secure  of  the  respectability  vote,  but  holding  many 
voters  of  the  opposite  class  by  an  uncertain  tenure,  these  latter 
will  control  the  party  until  the  decent  people  resolve  that  they 
will  be  uncertain,  too.  If  there  is  a  party  strong  in  the  unswerv- 
ing adhesion  of  great  masses  of  ignorant  and  reckless  voters,  and 
depending  for  its  chances  of  power  on  the  accession  of  men  of 
conscience  and  public  virtue,  that  party,  in  spite  of  its  instincts, 
in  spite  of  its  traditions,  will  gravitate  toward  public  morals  and 
upright  administration,while  all  the  world  looks  on  and  wonders 
why. 

No,  no  !    In  the  long  run,  it  is  the  meek  that  inherit  the  earth, 
after  all.     The  pomp  and  glory  of  the  party  leader  and  the  boss 


16 


are  only  a  vain  show.  The  uncrowned  king  turns  out  to  be  the 
quiet  citizen  who  looks  serenely  out  of  window  upon  the  strife  of 
parties,  and  then  goes  to  drop  his  casting  vote  into  the  ballot-box 
without  a  tremor  of  hesitation,  even  though  (to  borrow  the 
phrase  of  a  great  citizen  of  Boston)  he  may  seem  to  be  sacrificing 
the  interests  of  the  next  election  to  the  interests  of  the  next  gen- 
eration. 


APPENDIX     I. 


THE    RISE    AND    FALL     OF     MAJORITY     GOVERNMENT    IN 
MASSACHUSETTS. 

Considering  the  fundamental  importance  of  the  question  of  the 
mode  of  election,  and  the  variance  of  usage  between  England 
and  France  and  among  the  American  States,  it  is  surprising  how 
difficult  it  is  to  find  any  history  or  discussion  of  the  subject.  In 
the  voluminous  literature  of"  cumulative  voting  "  and  "  minority 
representation"  I  have  failed  to  find  any  allusion  to  it.  The 
most  important  observations  on  the  subject  that  I  have  met  with, 
after  considerable  inquiry  and  search,  are  a  few  paragraphs  in 
Cushing's  "  Law  and  Practice  of  Legislative  Assemblies," 
§§  1 26-131,  and  Appendix  IV.  After  stating  the  common  law  of 
England,  according  to  which  "  the  term  majority  embraces  what 
is  denoted  with  us  by  the  word  plurality"  the  author  continues : 
"  In  this  country,  however,  the  principle  of  majority,  or  absolute 
majority  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  was  early  introduced  into  the 
law  of  elections  by  the  colonists  of  New  England"  (§  127). 
And  in  some  of  the  States,  notably  in  Massachusetts,  it  was  in 
force  by  common  law  and  usage,  quite  independently  of  any  con- 
stitutional or  statutory  provision.  "  Indeed  the  majority  principle 
is  so  essential  and fundamental in  Massachusetts,  that  it  prevails 
in  the  elections  of  all  private  corporations  and  associations,  as 
well  as  in  those  of  a  municipal  character"  (§  128). 

It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  this  author  found  it  M  foreign  to 
his  purpose  to  consider"  the  question  whether  "  the  diversity 
among  the  States  in  the  mode  of  determining  the  result  of  an 
election  maybe  the  source  of  corresponding  diversities  in  political 
character  and  history."  "It  would  be  interesting,  doubtless,  to 
know  what  was  the  origin  of  this  difference,  whether  it  was 
accidental  or  intentional,  —  if  the  latter,  was  it  the  purpose  in 
view  in  the  establishment  of  the  majority-  principle  in  some 
States  to  secure  greater  permanence  and  stability  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  government?  —  or  was  the  plurality  principle  main- 


18 


tained  in  others  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  and  destroying  the 
influence  of  third  and  other  minor  parties  ?  —  or,  whatever  were 
the  purposes  in  view,  have  these  purposes  been  effected  ?  These 
are  questions  which  do  not  probably  admit  of  a  satisfactory 
answer"  (§  130). 

Much  light,  however,  is  thrown  on  these  questions  by  the  study 
of  the  recent  political  history  of  the  States  in  which  the  majority 
principle  once  prevailed,  and  is  now  abolished.  The  debates  in 
the  Massachusetts  Constitutional  Convention  of  1853  give  sufficient 
indication  of  the  motives  of  the  change  which  that  convention 
refused,  but  which  was  brought  about  two  or  three  years  later  by 
another  process  ;  and  the  subsequent  political  history  of  the  State, 
compared  with  its  earlier  political  history,  would  show  how  far 
those  motives  have  been  satisfied  by  the  result.  It  is  obvious  in 
the  debates  that  the  two  motives  that  impelled,  at  that  time, 
towards  the  rejection  of  the  immemorial,  fundamental,  and  char- 
acteristic principle  of  the  New  England  republics  were  these  : 
I,  the  popular  impatience  at  the  interminably  long  contests  of 
election,  resulting  sometimes  in  the  final  failure  to  elect  at  all ; 
and,  2,  the  disposition  of  the  two  great  parties,  both  of  them  com- 
mitted to  the  same  side  of  the  pending  questions  about  slavery, 
to  extinguish  the  strong  anti-slavery  sentiment  which  was  making 
itself  heard  through  a  growing  third  party.  From  the  able  and 
protracted  discussions  I  transcribe  some  words  of  a  few  of  the 
leading  speakers  in  favor  of  the  maintenance  of  the  majority 
principle  :  — 

Amasa  Walker.  —  I  do  not  know  that  it  will  be  said,  but  I 
am  sure  it  will  be  felt  or  thought,  by  some  that  by  the  proposed 
change  we  will  get  rid  of  third  parties.  And  what  shall  we  get 
instead  of  third  parties?  We  shall  get,  instead  of  third  parties, 
founded  on  principle,  factions  struggling  for  power.  ...  In 
all  States  where  this  [plurality]  principle  obtains,  politics  become 
a  raffle,  the  contest  of  parties  and  factions  a  scrub-race,  in  which 
the  one  who  gets  the  first  start  is  likely  to  come  out  best. 
The  majority  rule  gives  every  man  his  full  power,  so  that  a  man 
may  be  a  man  under  any  circumstances  whatever ;  so  that  at  the 
ballot-box  he  may  be  not  less  than  a  full  man,  and  his  vote  have 
its  full  effect,  either  for  a  candidate  or  against  him.  How  is  it 
under  the  other  system?  A.  man  may  be  of  some  consequence 
by  his  vote,  or  he  may  not.     If  he  belongs  to  a  third  party,  which 


19 


is  in  the  minority,  then  he  comes  up  to  the  polls  with  the  cer- 
tainty that  his  vote  has  no  weight  whatever ;  that  it  can  have  no 
effect  on  the  final  result.  He  may  vote  according  to  his  convic- 
tions of  right,  in  order  to  bear  his  testimony  against  wrong ;  but 
so  far  as  any  political  effect  is  concerned  he  might  just  as  well 
not  vote  at  all.  He  finds  himself  a  political  cipher  unless  he 
will  resign  his  honest  convictions,  and  join  one  of  the  two  great 
struggling  parties.  All  that  is  left  to  him,  under  the  plurality 
system,  is  the  miserable  alternative  of  "  choosing  between  two 
evils."  Ought  any  man  voluntarily  to  place  himself  in  a  position 
where  he  must  choose  one  of  two  evils,  or  be  politically  annihi- 
lated ?  Ought  we  to  present  a  Constitution  to  the  people  which 
destroys  individual  independence  and  power,  and  makes  the 
people  the  tools  of  caucuses  and  conventions,  bodies  not  known 
or  acknowledged  in  our  State  or  national  constitutions?  . 
I  believe,  if  we  were  to  examine  the  history  of  other  States,  we 
should  find  that  political  demoralization  has  always  followed  the 
adoption  of  the  plurality  system.  It  must  follow  as  a  matter  of 
course,  if  I  understand  the  matter,  for  it  destroys  the  moral 
element  of  politics.       (I.,  123,  124.) 

Mr.  Calhoun,  in  a  large  posthumous  work  lately  issued,  main- 
tains, with  his  usual  clearness  and  force,  that  this  great  system  of 
caucuses  and  conventions  which  has  grown  up  in  our  politics  was 
never  contemplated  by  the  framers  of  the  Constitution,  and  that 
such  conventions  do,  in  fact,  thwart  the  original  design  and  inten- 
tions of  that  instrument.  Of  the  truthfulness  of  this  viewT  of  the 
subject  there  can  be  no  doubt.  This  convention  or  caucus  system 
was  never  anticipated.  Commencing  in  small  beginnings,  the 
system  now  pervades  the  Union,  overrides  the  Constitution,  gives 
law  to  the  nation,  and  an  entirely  different  character  to  the  gov- 
ernment from  that  which  was  originally  intended.  With  the 
growth  of  this  caucus  system  has  grown  up  the  plurality  system 
in  elections.  Majorities  were  found  to  stand  in  the  way  of 
political  managers.  They  must  be  got  rid  of.  Under  the  lead  of 
wily  politicians  one  State  after  another  has  been  induced  to  pro- 
vide that  a  plurality  may  elect,  at  least  in  regard  to  national 
officers,  and  the  majority  has  now  ceased  to  be  the  governing 
power  in  this  republic.  What  do  we  find  as  the  result  of  this 
state  of  things?  We  find  that  our  national  politics  are  corrupted, 
that  the  few  govern  the  many,  and  that  the  people  are  at  the 
mercy  of  the  politicians.  .  .  .  if  that  gentleman  should  live  to 
old  age  he  will  see  the  greatest  struggle  that  was  ever  made  in 
this  country  to  get  back  to  the  true  democratic  principle  of  the 
rule  of  the  majority.      (I.,  207.) 

Benjamin  F.  Hallett.  — As  a  politician,  I  would  be  in 
favor  of  the  plurality  system,  as  the  more  expedient  of  the  two  ; 


20 


but  as  a  propounder  of  organic  law  I  am  opposed  to  it.  The 
question  in  my  mind,  therefore,  is  whether  I  am  acting  here 
as  a  politician,  or,  as  far  as  I  may  be  able,  as  a  statesman.  .  .  . 
In  looking  at  the  fundamental  principles  of  our  Massachusetts 
government  I  find  that  the  two  earliest  principles  engrafted  on  it 
were  the  majority  principle  in  all  the  forms  of  law,  and  the 
representation  of  towns.  This  goes  back  to  the  year  1631,  and 
runs  through  your  political  history  from  thence  until  now.  (I., 
150.)  If  I  were  going  to  vote  in  this  matter  merely  as  a  politi- 
cian, so  as  to  cull  a  plurality  party  out  of  all  the  three  parties  in 
the  Commonwealth,  I  would  go  for  this ;  and  it  is  a  strong 
temptation  to  do  so,  because,  I  confess,  I  want  to  get  rid  of  that 
third  party.     (II.,  359.) 

Benjamin  F.  Butler.  —  ...  When  he  told  us  that  twenty- 
five  States  had  adopted  the  plurality  rule  fully,  and  then  that  the 
government,  the  whole  government  of  the  country,  in  making  a 
president,  had  passed  into  conventions,  did  it  occur  to  him  that 
the  plurality  rule  was  the  cause?  Did  it  occur  to  him  that  the 
great  majority  who  have  gone  for  the  plurality  rule  are  those  that 
make  the  presidents,  and  that  this  caucus  system  has  grown  up  — 
where,  sir?  Where  did  it  originate — where  is  the  hot-bed  of 
it?  Where  is  the  beginning  of  national  conventions,  if  you 
please  ?  .  .  .  Did  they  originate  where  the  majority  principle 
prevails  ?  No,  sir  ;  but  they  originated  in  New  York,  where  the 
plurality  rule  prevails.  The  old  sticklers  for  plurality  are  there, 
from  beginning  to  end.  Is  it  not  a  matter  of  history  that  national 
conventions  commenced  from  New  York  caucuses,  from  the  men 
who  have  always  lived  under  a  plurality  system?  ...  If  I 
thought  the  plurality  rule  would  kill  a  third  party,  as  a  politician 
—  and  I  am  not  speaking  in  any  other  sense  —  I  would  vote  for 
it  with  both  hands  up.      (I.,  216.) 

Henry  Wilson.  —  As  a  politician,  I  should  agree  with  the 
member  for  Wilbraham  (Mr.  Hallett) ,  that  it  would  be  for  my 
interest,  and  the  interest  of  the  men  with  whom  I  act,  to  have  a 
plurality  rule  in  this  Commonwealth.  Before  three  years  pass 
away  I  venture  to  say  that  those  gentlemen  who  think  now  that 
this  system  is  to  blot  us  out  will  find  they  have  not  won  by  it.  .  .  . 
I  oppose  the  plurality  system  because  I  believe  it  tends  to  de- 
grade the  politics  of  the  country,  and  to  demoralize  the  politi- 
cians of  the  country.  It  has  increased  the  power  of  the  caucus, 
the  convention,  party  organizations,  great  combinations,  great 
interests,  and  the  influence  of  political  leaders  ;  and  it  has  di- 
minished the  power  of  the  people  who  follow  their  higher  and 
better  sentiments.  .  .  .  Everything  that  is  progressive,  that 
carries  us  onward  in  the  career  of  democratic  progress,  springs  from 


21 


the  higher  and  nobler  sentiments  of  the  people  who  follow  their 
own  ideas,  rather  than  the  demands  of  combinations  of  interest  and 
ambition.  I  put  it  to  gentlemen  of  the  convention  to  say  if  it  be 
not  a  "  fixed  fact"  that  very  many  of  our  best  men  —  men  who 
are  guided  by  ideas  and  sentiments,  men  who  follow  their  moral 
convictions  rather  than  the  banner  of  political  strife,  men  who 
want  good  government  and  good  public  officers  —  do  not  attend 
political  caucuses  and  conventions.  Now,  sir,  if  you  adopt  the 
plurality  system,  what  will  be  its  practical  effect  upon  these  men, 
upon  whose  moral  instincts,  liberal  tendencies,  and  unselfish 
action  the  best  hopes  of  the  country  rest?  Under  our  majority 
system  the  political  leaders  and  active  politicians  who  go  into 
caucuses  and  conventions  know  there  is  a  moral  power  at  home,  — 
that  if  they  outrage  that  moral  power  by  putting  up  an  un- 
worthy candidate,  or  by  endorsing  an  unsound  principle  or  adopt- 
ing a  selfish  policy,  when  the  day  of  election  comes  the 
mechanic  and  the  farmer  —  the  men  who  do  not  generally  meddle 
with  political  affairs  —  will  come  up  to  the  ballot-box  and  will 
checkmate  their  policy,  defeat  their  candidate,  and  arrest  them 
in  their  career.  The  majority  system  gives  the  men  of  principles, 
ideas,  and  sentiments  the  power  to  resist  the  schemes  of  party 
leaders,  and  to  make  them  feel,  whenever  they  enter  the  caucus 
and  the  convention,  that  they  must  not  outrage  the  higher  senti- 
ments of  the  best  men  of  their  parties.  Now,  sir,  adopt  the 
plurality  rule  in  all  your  elections  and  you  make  the  caucus  and 
the  convention  omnipotent ;  you  give  full  sway  to  the  political 
chiefs  who  are  controlled  by  interest  and  ambition.  The  whole 
tendency  of  the  system  is  to  debauch  the  public  sentiment  of  the 
country  and  to  enthrone  the  omnipotent  power  of  the  caucus  and 
the  convention. 

Politicians  go  into  the  caucus  or  the  convention  prompted  by 
ambition  and  interest,  adopt  their  own  schemes  of  policy,  and 
when  the  day  of  election  comes,  and  the  men  who  are  governed 
by  their  higher  and  better  sentiments  assemble  around  the  ballot- 
box,  they  are  told  that  they  must  take  the  "  choice  of  evils,"  — 
that  they  must  vote  for  a  candidate  they  know  to  be  unworthy ; 
whose  ''  nomination  was  not  fit  to  be  made,"  —  or  his  and  their 
political  opponent  will  be  elected.  They  know  the  contest  must 
be  then  and  there  decided.  They  feel  the  pressure.  They  pause, 
hesitate,  yield,  vote  for  a  candidate  they  know  to  be  unworthy, 
and  go  home  degraded  in  their  own  eyes,  and  more  ready  to  yield 
again  to  the  demands  of  the  caucus  and  the  convention.  The 
whole  machinery  of  caucuses  and  conventions,  in  this  country,  is 
one  of  the  worst  features  of  our  democratic  institutions.  The 
majority  system  gives  the  people  the  power  to  checkmate  their 
influence  ;  the  plurality  system  lets  them  have  free  course  and  be 
glorified.     Sir,  I  have  had,  during  the  past  fifteen  years,  some 


22 


little  knowledge  of  caucuses  and  conventions,  and  the  more  I 
have  seen  of  the  managers  of  caucuses  and  conventions  the  less 
I  think  of  them.  The  more  I  see  of  caucuses  and  conventions, 
of  the  strifes  of  political  life,  the  more  I  turn  to  the  unbiassed  will 
of  the  people  with  hope  and  confidence.  I  am  a  party  man  ;  but 
the  more  I  see  of  politicians  the  more  ready  I  am  to  concur  with 
the  man  who  said  that  the  more  he  saw  of  others  the  better  the 
thought  of  himself.     (I.,  161.) 


APPENDIX     II. 


OBJECTIONS  ANSWERED. 

The  writer  of  this  pamphlet  highly  appreciates  the  advantage 
of  having  drawn  upon  his  argument  the  public  criticism  of  the 
press,  and  the  private  criticism  of  some  of  the  gentlemen  who 
listened  to  it  with  such  kind  expressions  of  interest  at  the  dinner 
of  the  Reform  Club.  These  criticisms  enable  him  to  answer  in 
advance  some  of  the  objections  that  are  likely  to  present  them- 
selves to  readers  of  the  pamphlet.  Some  of  the  more  important 
of  them  are  here  transcribed  :  — 

(jFrom  the  Boston  Herald.) 
Dr.  Leonard  Bacon's  supposition  that  in  the  substitution  of  the 
plurality  system  for  that  of  the  majority  in  the  election  of  candi- 
dates to  office  he  has  found  a  cause  of  the  degeneration  of  politics 
will  hardly  bear  examination.  The  majority  system  was  aban- 
doned because  it  created  embarrassments  which  were  not  com- 
pensated by  anything  gained  in  the  interest  of  minorities.  It  still 
exists,  as  regards  the  candidates  for  the  executive  State  offices  in 
Dr.  Bacon's  own  State  of  Connecticut,  and  in  one  case  there,  of 
recent  years,  it  has  given  the  governorship  to  a  candidate  who  had 
a  much  smaller  vote  than  his  leading  opponent.  We  have  never 
heard  it  claimed  that  it  had  improved  Connecticut  politics  in  any 
way. 

I  am  glad  to  explain  that  my  argument  is  not  in  the  least  de- 
vised "  in  the  interest  of  minorities,"  but  in  the  interest  of  the 
majority.  Under  the  present  system  a  minority  contemptibly 
small  in  number  succeeds  in  a  multitude  of  cases  in  overruling 


23 


the  clear  and  positive  wish  of  the  great  mass  of  the  people,  and 
in  placing  in  offices  of  honor  and  trust,  men  whom  the  majority 
would  gladly  exclude,  but  cannot  except  by  electing  men  still 
more  objectionable.  If  there  are  those  who  doubt  that  it  is  a 
common  thing  for  a  candidate  to  be  sent  to  Congress  whom  not 
a  hundred  men  in  his  district  would  have  named  as  a  suitable 
man,  the  instances  to  prove  this  can  be  cited  until  no  room  re- 
mains for  even  the  affectation  of  doubt.  I  am  not  concerned  at 
present  for  the  "  representation  of  minorities."  That  can  well 
afford  to  wait  until  we  have  contrived  some  way  of  giving  the 
majority  a  chance  to  be  represented. 

The  case  of  Connecticut  illustrates  the  working,  not  of  the 
method  proposed,  but  of  the  plan  of  throwing  the  election,  when 
there  is  no  choice  by  a  majority  of  the  people,  into  the  hands  of 
a  rotten-borough  legislature. 

{From  the  Boston  Advertiser.) 

Dr.  Bacon's  prescription  is  not  a  new  one,  and  its  use  hereto- 
fore has  not  been  always  satisfactory  to  him  or  his  independent 
friends.  As  illustrated  in  our  caucus  system  it  has  time  and 
again  given  rise  to  independent  heart-burnings.  He  will  doubt- 
less claim,  however,  that  his  remedy  has  not  yet  been  fairly  tried. 
He  wishes  to  see  it  applied  to  popular  elections,  open  to  voters 
of  all  parties  and  shades  of  belief.  If,  in  such  an  election,  an 
obnoxious  man  is  a  candidate,  he  can  be  defeated  by  the  votes  of 
those  who  hold  the  balance  of  power  under  the  majority  rule, 
without  bringing  into  office  a  rival  who  may  be  equally  offensive. 
This  process  can  then  be  indefinitely  repeated,  until  some  man 
who  is  satisfactory  to  the  dissenting  voters  receives  the  party  nomi- 
nation. 

There  is  a  theoretical  advantage  in  this  course,  but  its  practical 
merit  is  by  no  means  certain.  It  may  result  in  giving  to  a  small 
number  of  voters  a  controlling  power  to  which  they  are  not  fairly 
entitled.  By  this  device  a  few  men  may  succeed  in  bending  the 
will  of  a  great  body  of  men  to  their  own  views,  and  in  effect  sub- 
stituting the  rule  of  an  oligarchy  for  that  of  a  democracy  under  a 
form  of 4k  majority  election,"  which  is,  in  substance,  a  vain  pre- 
tence. 

It  may  result,  furthermore,  in  a  series  of  vexatious  canvasses 
and  elections  which  will  make  practical  men  sick  of  the  very 
name  of  popular  sovereignty.  Perhaps  these  and  attendant  ills 
may  not  follow  the  adoption  of  this  plan,  but  a  candid  man  will 
admit  that  they  are  to  be  feared. 


24 


If  we  were  to  judge  of  the  future  by  the  past  our  confidence  in 
this  remedy  would  not  be  increased,  judging,  at  any  rate,  from 
the  final  issue  of  its  trial  in  Maine.  The  memory  is  yet  fresh  of 
the  contested  election  of  1879-80,  when  Governor  Garcelon  made 
his  canvassing  board  a  bad  copy  of  his  Southern  models,  and 
when  a  dictatorship  was  thrust  upon  General  Chamberlain  to 
save  the  State  from  anarchy.  After  this  sufficient  experience 
people  in  Maine  were  well  content  to  exchange  the  remedy  of 
Dr.  Bacon  for  the  "  delusive,  un-American,  British  "  abomination 
of  plurality  elections. 

The  objection,  u  this  process  can  be  indefinitely  repeated,"  "  in 
a  series  of  vexatious  canvasses  and  elections,"  applies  undoubtedly 
to  the  old  law  of  Massachusetts,  under  which,  in  the  attempt  to 
choose  a  Congressman,  a  dozen  or  a  score  of  futile  ballotings 
would  be  taken,  and  the  district  go  unrepresented  at  the  end. 
[Instances  like  this  were  quoted  in  the  course  of  the  debates  in 
the  Constitutional  Convention  of  1853.]  Neither  this  objection, 
however,  nor  that  drawn  from  the  Maine  incident,  has  any  perti- 
nence, I  think,  to  the  present  argument. 

{From  the  Boston  Post.) 

The  remedy  is  hardly  complete,  for  it  is  apparent  that,  should 
the  partisan  forces  be  persistent,  they  could  eventually  compel  a 
ballot  as  between  the  two  principal  candidates  substantially  as  in 
our  present  system.  What  might  be  gained  would  be  a  larger 
opportunity  for  discussion  in  the  light,  also,  of  the  protest  made 
in  the  early  ballots.  The  disadvantages  would  be  found  in  the 
complexity  and  increase  of  machinery  and  the  burdens  of  repeated 
ballots.  It  may  also  be  doubted  whether  the  result  would  not 
prove  that  the  longer  the  contest  the  greater  the  opportunity  for 
manipulation  and  election  wire-pulling.  Certainly  a  change  so 
radical  requires  much  searching  discussion  before  acceptance. 

The  same  objection,  which  seems  to  me  by  far  the  most  serious 
that  is  to  be  brought  against  the  plan  proposed,  is  forcibly  stated 
in  a  private  letter  to  me  from  a  member  of  the  Reform  Club  :  — 

I  am  not  able  to  say  that  I  am  quite  convinced  of  your  remedy. 
It  would  seem  to  be  postponing  the  triumph  of  the  spoilsmen 
only  to  the  third  ballot.  Possibly  it  might  lead  to  a  trifle  better 
nominations  in  certain  cases ;  but  if  the  two  highest  were  both 
spoilsmen,  or  unfit,  as  is  not  unfrequently  the  case,  it  seems  to 
me  the  parties  can  lie  upon  their  oars  and  wait  with  the  pleasing 


25 


spectacle  before  them  of  the  independent  voters  having  to  swallow- 
one  or  the  other  of  their  nauseating  dishes.  Meanwhile  the  pub- 
lic will  be  put  to  considerable  expense,  be  wearied  with  the  pro- 
longed fight,  and  the  average  business  man  will  be  inclined  to  let 
things  take  care  of  themselves,  while  he  attends  to  his  affairs. 

In  answering  this  objection  let  me  assume  (what  I  have  small 
means  of  judging  for  myself)  the  justice  of  statements  which  I 
have  heard  about  the  pending  canvass  in  Massachusetts  :  that  the 
managers  of  the  dominant  party  in  the  State  have  procured  the 
nomination  for  Governor  of  a  man  who  is  widely  felt,  both  in  the 
party  and  out  of  it,  to  be  unworthy  of  the  place.  The  people  of 
Massachusetts,  as  a  community,  do  not  wish  this  man  to  be 
Governor.  Nevertheless  it  is  not  unlikely  that  they  will  make 
him  Governor,  being  practically  coerced  thereto,  under  an  alter- 
native which  they  contemplate  with  reluctance,  by  a  small  but 
highly  organized  junto  of  men  not  generally  respected.  This 
despicable  gang  of  tyrants  have  acquired  the  power  of  forcing  a 
large  part  of  the  people  of  Massachusetts  to  a  choice  between 
accepting  an  offensive  candidate,  and  sacrificing  cherished  parti- 
san attachments  and  convictions  of  national  interest.  Under- 
stand that  I  am  taking  this  alleged  case  for  the  sake  of  argument. 
If  this  is  not  a  true  account  of  the  situation  in  Massachusetts 
to-day  it  is  a  feeble  under-statement  of  the  conditions  under 
which  American  citizens  have  again  and  again  M  been  driven  to 
the  polls  holding  their  noses." 

Now,  what  would  be  the  course  of  events,  in  this  case,  under 
the  proposed  law? 

i.  In  the  first  place  the  case  would  hardly  occur.  There 
would  be  no  temptation  to  the  boss  to  secure  the  nomination  of  a 
man  whom  he  did  not  believe  to  be  acceptable  on  his  merits.  And 
no  unacceptable  would-be  candidate  would  have  any  inducement 
to  intrigue  or  bribe  for  the  nomination.  It  would  be  to  invite 
swift  and  humiliating  defeat.  The  main  study  of  the  "  practical 
politician  "  would  have  to  be,  to  discover  the  honest,  unconstrained 
sentiments  of  the  party  and  the  people,  and  conform  himself 
thereto.  He  would  be  compelled  to  aim  at  making  such  nomina- 
tions as  would  win  on  the  first  ballot. 

2.    But,  supposing  the  unfit   nomination  to  have  been  made, 


26 


there  will  be  an  immediate  movement  for  a  bolt ;  and  this  will  go 
forward  with  perfect  freedom,  no  man  being  afraid  of  hurting  his 
party,  or  that  his  party  will  hurt  him  ;  the  only  men  in  danger  of 
getting  hurt  will  be  the  "practical  politicians"  who  have  made 
the  mischief.  It  is  not  necessary  that  the  bolt  should  be  carefully 
organized  and  concentrated  on  one  candidate.  The  scattering 
vote  will  suffice  to  defeat  the  machine  without  defeating  the  party. 
At  the  first  sign  that  the  bolt  is  growing  formidable  there  will  be 
searchings  of  hearts  and  hurryings  to  and  fro  among  the  men  who 
have  got  up  the  regular  ticket,  with  proposals  to  do  something  to 
correct  their  unfortunate  mistake  before  election. 

3.  If,  nevertheless,  the  dominant  party  comes  to  the  polls  on 
election-day,  divided  between  two  or  more  candidates,  every 
voter  will  understand  that  the  question  at  this  ballot  is  not  on  the 
election  of  officers,  but  on  the  ratification  of  nominations.  The 
ballot  is  a  nominating  convention  of  the  whole  people,  to  nom- 
inate three  candidates  to  be  voted  on  subsequently.  The  nominee 
of  the  undivided  second  party  will  be  one  of  the  three,  of  course. 
If  there  are  small  third  and  fourth  parties  these  will  cast  their 
full  vote  for  a  nomination,  making  thereby  all  the  moral  impres- 
sion to  which  they  are  entitled,  and  yet  not  losing  their  right 
to  an  effective  vote  for  their  second  choice  at  the  final  election. 

4.  After  the  results  of  the  first  ballot  have  been  published  the 
candidate  who  is  clearly  in  the  minority  of  the  dominant  party, 
in  ordinary  circumstances,  unless  he  is  a  fool,  or  unless  he  has 
the  expectation  of  large  accessions  from  the  minor  parties,  will 
withdraw,  and  the  contest  will  terminate  with  the  second  ballot. 
Severe  conflicts  of  principle,  when  they  arise,  will  be  apt  to 
necessitate  a  third  and  final  ballot. 

But  suppose  that,  after  all,  on  the  final  vote,  the  unfit  machine- 
candidate  is  successful  ?  Why,  then  you  are  beaten  —  that  is  all 
there  is  of  it.  And  the  Ring  has  won  a  Pyrrhic  victory.  One 
more  such,  and  it  is  undone.  For  it  is  pretty  sure  that  the  party- 
ring  which  in  two  or  three  successive  "  campaigns"  should  find 
its  nominations  repudiated  at  the  polls  as  unfit,  by  a  large,  solid 
and  weighty  mass  of  the  party,  would  be  compelled  either  to 
change  the  style  of  its  nominations,  or  else  to  retire  from  the 
management. 


27 


One  more  question :  Would  not  the  proposed  system  tire  out 

the  citizen  by  its  too  frequent  demands  for  his  attendance  at  the 

polls  ? 

Answer:  (i.)  The  proposed  system  is  less  exacting  than  the 

existing  one.  The  present  system  contemplates  that  the  body  of 
citizens  shall  turn  out  twice  for  every  election  —  once  to  nomi- 
nate and  once  to  elect  —  unless  the  nominating  is  to  be  left  to  the 
Ring.  The  proposed  system  contemplates  that  the  caucus  shall 
be  controlled  by  those  who  stay  away  from  it ;  and  that,  the 
nominations  having  been  made  with  reference  to  the  known  de- 
sire of  the  people,  a  single  balloting  will,  in  many  cases,  decide 
the  election.  The  cases  in  which  two,  or  at  most  three,  ballotings 
are  required  will  be  those  occasional  sharp  conflicts  of  principle 
or  character  which  sufficiently  stir  the  public  mind  to  bring  out  a 
full  vote.  (2.)  The  citizen  is  less  likely  to  be  impatient  at  the 
repeated  demand  upon  his  time,  than  at  the  demand  for  the  futile 
and  ineffectual  use  of  his  time,  as  now,  when  he  is  often  sum- 
moned to  a  choice  of  two  evils.  (3.)  When  one  cannot  attend 
more  than  one  balloting  he  may  choose  which  one  to  attend.  In 
many  cases  he  might  justly  say,  let  me  control  the  nominations 
and  I  care  not  who  makes  the  election.  (4.)  Any  increase  in 
the  trouble  of  effecting  an  election  may  easily  be  compensated  by 
lengthening  terms  of  office,  and  so  diminishing  the  frequency  of 
elections.  (5.)  A  short,  sharp,  and  salutary  remedy  for  indif- 
ference and  neglect  of  duty  in  citizens  might  be  found  in  provid- 
ing that  the  elector's  franchise  should  be  forfeited  by  habitual 
disuse.  (6.)  The  inveterate  and  incurable  indifference  of  citizens 
to  political  affairs,  if  such  a  condition  should  declare  itself,  would 
be  proof  of  the  failure  of  democratic  government.  It  is  toward 
this  condition  that  the  present  electoral  system  is  drawing  us. 


%    ' 


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LD  21A-50m-3,'62 
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